As promised before, we are releasing today a new build of Mnemons’ alpha. This is the last build we will release of Mnemons in a long time and, I’m not gonna lie, probably ever. March 14th we will be dropping steadily our work and support on Mnemons and Semblante and we will start from scratch a brand new project.

Download Mnemons Alpha (0.2)

These are the changes from the last version:

*    Music on the hub should be working properly now.
*    Fixed a problem with the music loop on certain stages.
*    Added different graphic settings for the game:
**    F1 for Best settings: this is the regular graphics settings with lowest performance, which needs a good video card to run smoothly. It’s the default mode.
**    F2 for Better settings: this mode removes some graphical effects, improving performance. Mid-range to budget graphics cards can run this mode smoothly.
**    F3 for Good settings: this mode removes all shaders and graphical effects. Use it if you have an IGP or legacy cards that can’t run the game properly even on the previous mode.
**    You can change the graphics settings at any time during the game or at the main menu. The changes only takes effect when you change stages, however.
*    Up to 46% performance improvement on all of the aforementioned modes by using a new rendering method for the Lethe, which means that if the game only slowed down on stages 1-6, 1-7 and 3-2, it will probably run smoothly now even on Best settings.
*    Added a brand new stage: 3-3.
*    Small fixes on stages 1-7 and 2-4. They should be less challenging now.
*    And some other small fixes…

And, oh yes! The image of this post is a wallpaper from our Mnemons Wallpaper Pack! Grab yours now!

Here it is. This is the final version of Semblante, dubbed Semblante 3.0 or Anniversary Edition, since we wanted to release it at the eve of Global Game Jam 2011. Unfortunately we missed the deadline by a matter of hours (really) and decided to release this version of Semblante only after our work with Mnemons was done (and the SXSW contest tight deadline was clear).

What has changed? Well, basically everything. We put a good 3 weeks of work on this particular version of Semblante (before it, both 1.0 and 2.0 were 48h efforts). This means that the game is bigger and more polished all around, with navigable menus, volume control and some other stuff we usually take for granted like checkpoints and a pause screen. Also, we put a distinct personality in each of the game’s shadows (and their own proper puzzle to retrieve them), revamped the game’s graphics (especially Jung’s animations) and redesigned the game’s sound effects and music (courtesy of our friend Hermann Rauth). We’re also able to finally put the game’s original script to good use, putting some contextual, albeit obscure, text integrated within the game’s backgrounds.

You can download Semblante 3.0 for free here or at the game’s page.

EDIT (18:30 BRT): The file available for download was corrupted. It should be fixed now.

In other news, we are wrapping things up here and both Mnemons and Semblante will have their final (for now) builds. We are preparing a series of posts for both games, detailing aspects of their brief development (both were developed in a 3 week time-frame). Expect the final builds to be released by the end of the week and the posts following soon thereafter.

The game is now in Alpha, which means it’s core is running healthily, the mechanics and most of the assets are there, but it has only 13 of the 28 planned levels, and you’ll be able to play with Moe and Jimmie, but not with Debbie and Andy. We’ll feed you with more news about the Festival ASAP, and hope you enjoy playing the Alpha with your friends!

You can download the game here or you can check the brand new game page instead.

And here it is: Semblante 2.0, the IGF version. It’s a full revamp of the previous version, as we ported the game to the Construct Game Creator.

As it is a full port and a redesign, pretty much everything is changed between visuals, mechanical tweaks, level design etc. We will improve this version as the time goes by as since we had more than 48 hour to develop Semblante 2.0 the code and all the production pipeline is much simpler, which makes improvements, bugfixing and asset implementation way easier than what we could achieve on the Game Maker version.

And yes, Semblante is one of the 391 games competing at the 13th Independent Games Festival. We submitted it for all the tiny bits of publicity we can get and to receive feedback from the judges and peers.

To download the latest version of Semblante click here. Or you can go grab it on the game’s main page.

See you.

I’m very glad to announce that Tsar Project is now officially  in production!

The next Tsar Update Bruno will lay more details in every department’s work, but for now I’ll give you a shot from the studio and some information on my work:

In the background our beautiful 64sq ft pinning board, full of references and WIPs, including beta versions of the game’s map, sound design equalization and chord maps, plot drafts and else. It is a greatly useful feature for a creative studio, indeed.

Those in the foreground are little models I’ve done recently of two types of guards we’ll have in the Kremlin, they’re made of platicine, and still WIP, but are already useful in finding the right angle for their sprites.

Behind them you can (NOT) see three models of our protagonist, in whom my work is focused now, primarily in doing his basic movements animations and sprites.

Last but not least there is the Tsar Project logo!!! We have decided to use the same principle of the studio’s visual ID in our in development projects, so the typography is the same Cedilha Script and the logo in a brush stroke monogram of Tsar (actually, Царь).

Type to you later, and have a nice week!

Even though our priority is the Tsar Project, we didn’t left Semblante behind. We’re sitll working on it to improve the gameplay and sharpen the game concept, looking forward to achieve a more complet experience on what’s been proposed for the game.
We just got extra motivation! =)

Before I start, a brief clarification. “Semblante” is a portuguese word that means “visage”. A good reason for the choice of this particular name was because it is a phonetically pleasing word (when spoken in native portuguese at least) the other reasons are pretty much subjective and we leave to each one his own to think about it or not.

The game is still a little incomplete as of now, even if it has a beginning and an end, as we need to work out some of the mechanics, asset implementations and general level design. Semblante is also quite simple, you control Jung inside its own mind as it searches for its own identity (represented as a mask) while avoiding the shadows that lurks within. The metaphor is obvious and I will not linger on it anymore.

The mechanics are pretty simple. Jung has 4 mechanics. It can move, jump, shine and scream. To shine, the character needs to stay in light spots to charge its body. Jung glows for a limited amount of time and while it is glowing, shadows are repelled by it. Jung can also use its remaining glow to scream and attract shadows to itself. We have a lot of bugs to work out still but the core mechanics are all there.

The guys at PUCPR jam site (we are at the right, with “uniforms”)

Aside from the game itself and talking about the Jam itself. It was a pleasing (and exhausting) experience to participate on a Global Game Jam. The extra hands were crucial for the game to come into fruition. In the name of the team I’d like to thank, Flor, Santo, Paulo and Rossato for their effort and dedication during the Jam. We also want to thank Bruno Campagnolo for organizing the Jam Site and the free sodas and sfihas. We’d like to do it again next year!

Hello again!

As promised, today I’ll present a more complete review of what we’ve seen in Rio during the SBGames. Yesterday we had our weekly meeting and basically discussed about the Symposium. Undoubtedly the most important aspect of our participation in the event was the networking we did there: game industry consultants, the Brazilian Ministry of Culture (MinC), publishers incubating programs, fellow developers, students and researchers. Secondly we agreed that the panels, as Bruno said three days ago, were the highlights of the event. Two of them, on Game Development Education and Governmental Policies, promoted some good discussion, but sadly also highlighted some misconceptions that are still deeply stuck in the minds of many in the Brazilian Game Industry and Educational System. Some of these include: the belief that is by trying to do the “Next Halo” – as put by Jason Della Rocca – that new developers will prevail, that there is no opportunity in remaining independent and in small business, that games should be viewed as simple entertainment industry goodies, that the artistic aspect of a game is limited to it’s visual aesthetics, that sound design is something alien to game development, that Game Design has more affinities to Product Design than with Chess, and so on. But don’t worry, as a coin has two faces there’s always the bright side. We discovered that the MinC has a very interesting opinion of Games and their artistic value, found some small developers and starter teams with some nice ideas and made some good acquaintances. Jason’s keynote was a very interesting and provoking exposition. Talking about the trends and the innovative cycles that permeates our industry, Jason urged the Brazilian developers to ignore the mainstream box (big budget, big teams, blockbuster AAA titles) and look for other ventures (indie, casual, advergames, etc.) to flourish. We hope that those wise words will be heard by the Brazilian developers.

Other remarkable pieces of the Symposium were the Indie Game Festival and the VideoGame Art Exhibition. Despite the short time we had to appreciate all the material in them, both seem to be great initiatives and had some good material to present. The sad part is the huge disparity of the contents. The Art Exhibition presented some concept arts and visual assets with artsy aesthetics (although in general the final assets tend to completely destroy the most beautiful and experimental concepts trying to look “realistic”), a nice character design competition (with both good ideas and childish-awesome-super-ultra-characters) and specially good exemplars of games with artistic meaning, such as the indies Passage, Gravitation and I Wish I Were The Moon. On the other hand, the games in the Indie Festival, as we were able to percieve them, lacked in general the deeper meaning and potential to transform a player through reflection and/or more experimental mechanics that are among the key features of many indie games done around the world. Many of the games in the Indie Festival had more garage-made-like, low budget features, and a clear desire to be a mainstream game, instead of focusing on innovative and experimental ideas, creative freedom or meaningful experiences. Once again we spot the evilness of the “Next Halo” Syndrome, even small teams tend to believe that the best way to go is, with a team of less than 20 people and a small budget, try to do something that will compete with EA, Ubisoft and Activision-Blizzard. So, remember Jason’s words and let’s start thinking out of the box or, even better, show us that there’s already more than meets the eye in the Brazilian industry. As I said in the first lines of the post, the greatest treasure of the Symposyum was networking, and people we met in this and the past SBGames give us hope that the second option is true. Some of them are our friend Guilherme Xavier and his team from Donsoft, the developers of the great winner of the Festival, the promising Capoeira Legends.

So, creative minds, bold designers, indie developers from Brazil, we call you all, we ask you to show yourselves!